Of Violins and Restaurants
by RumerMill
Summary: John keeps getting mistaken for Sherlock's date. All the time - wherever he goes.  *UPDATE* I was going to maybe write more of this, but I like how it ends, so it's now complete.
1. Chapter 1

**One**

"Come along John, we don't have all day to dilly-dally around!" Sherlock shouted over his shoulder at a limping Watson, who - try as he might just could not keep up with the sociopathic genius.

"Some of us do have a limp, you know" Watson replied, huffing as he hurried along the pavement a few steps behind on the cold, late October evening.

"Oh come on, we both know that's at least partly psychosomatic." Nevertheless, Sherlock paused and waited for the doctor to catch up with him. "We're here now anyway" he added, a slight grin on his face. John stopped in front of him and looked at the restaurant they had stopped outside of.

"This restaurant's in the middle of nowhere, I'm not even sure we're still in London, why are we stopping here?" The doctor asked, looking quizzically up at the detective.

"Why not? It's as good a place as any, and besides, you need to eat." he replied and pulled the door opened, bowed slightly and motioned for Watson to enter before him.

The restaurant was small and slightly dark, but not enough to be considered gloomy. It had a very welcoming feel to it, and John and Sherlock sank into two chairs at a table by the window. The chairs were dark oak and the tables matched, with a white linen tablecloth draped over each one. A candle sat in the middle of each table throwing a soft glow onto the faces of the patrons of the restaurant, of which there were few. Sherlock smiled at Watson across the table - Watson gave an uncomfortable half-smirk back.

"I suppose you've stopped someone going to prison here as well then? What was it for, larceny? Grand Theft Auto? GBH?" As Watson uttered the last in the trio of crimes, a small, slight young woman with long, brown curly hair came up to the table with a menu pad and a pen. She smiled shyly at Sherlock, then looked up, as if she only noticed Watson for the first time just then.

"Good evening gentlemen, my name is Sara and I'll be your waitress for the evening. The house speciality for the evening is Sea Bass basted in olive oil, crushed chilli and ginger, and there's, uhm, a two for one offer on... couple's meals..."

"I'm not his date." John said firmly, looking straight into the young girl's eyes, who immediately began to blush.

"Oh, forgive me, I just assumed, two gentlemen out together at night..."

"Yes, well, we're not a couple. Anything else on the specials board or can we just see the menu?" the doctor fidgeted with his hands, the left one trembling as always. Sherlock sat with an amused smile on his face, watching as the ex-military man fumbled with hands that were once so sure.

"R-right away, yes, I'm sorry..." Sara muttered as she walked off in the direction of the bar looking quite flustered, where she started clattering about trying to find two menus.

"That embarrassed to be seen with me, are you?" Sherlock grinned coyly from across the table, his head rested on the palm of his left hand, little finger lightly placed on his bottom lip. The candle lit up the contours of his face and John felt a tightening in his stomach. Before he could reply, the detective chuckled and went on a reem of intelligence about the latest case the pair were working on. This left Watson free to muse on his own thoughts for a few more minutes, as he knew that Sherlock never expected a reply to his brainwaves, he just needed someone to talk to so as not to appear completely crazy.

Before any significant pondering could be done, Sara came back to the table carrying two elegant-looking menus, bound in black leather with the name of the restaurant etched in faded gold lettering on the front. She handed one to each of the men at the table, then put down two wine glasses and brought out a bottle of Merlot wine, uncorked it and poured into Sherlock's glass.

"Compliments of Mr Belafonte, as a thank you for helping his son not too long ago. He also said that you can eat for free tonight, anything on the menu." The girl, who to Watson looked around the age of 21 with a soft face and dark brown eyes, was still blushing slightly from her earlier encounter with the gentlemen. After she had finished pouring the wine, she hurriedly made her way back towards the bar.

"I knew you'd helped him in some way or another. We never seem to go anywhere unless we eat for free-"

"What's the point of paying for fine cuisine when my intelligence can pay for it many times over?" Sherlock cut off the doctor, leaving him with his mouth hanging slightly open.

Once Watson had regained some semblance of coherency, he closed his mouth and once more resumed his role of silent partner, allowing the detective - who some deemed crazy and psychopathic, whereas to the doctor he was simply brilliant - to sound off more ideas and follow them to what always proved to be some form of conclusion.

After about five minutes, the rambling slowed to a halt and Sherlock merely sat, waiting for his answer to be acknowledged by John, who - eventually - simply said "How do you do it, Sherlock?"

His reply was but a sly smile across his face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

The meal at the restaurant went on for longer than Watson thought it would have done, with Sherlock being as veiled about his life as usual and guessing everything about Watson's life right down to his favourite colour. The pair took their time sauntering home as, despite the chilly weather, it was quite a nice night - crisp and refreshing, the moon shining brightly, accompanied by the few bright stars that weren't drowned by light pollution in the busy centre of London.

Eventually, they made it back to Baker Street, Watson's limp worsening in the cold. Sherlock leaned on the door frame and looked at Watson expectantly.

"What?" The doctor quizzed the detective, who smiled and chuckled to himself. "No really, what joke am I missing, or is it something that only sociopaths get?"

"Well, aren't you going to open the door?" The detective grinned his smug little grin at Watson, whose face fell. "What's wrong? Don't tell me you've forgotten the key..." Both men moaned, looked at each other and laughed.

"You're supposed to be the genius here, what kind of genius forgets house keys?" Watson chided Sherlock with a grin on his face, only being half serious.

"And you, my fine man, were in the military. What kind of military man forgets his keys?" Sherlock retorted, grabbing the drain pipe next to the door and looking up to see if there were any open windows further up the house. Alas, the cold night had obviously got to Mrs Hudson as she had shut all the windows.

"Oh shut up, I'm going to call Mrs Hudson." John said as he pulled his phone from his pocket. Within a few minutes, Mrs Hudson had shuffled down the stairs to let them in.

"Oh you boys, always galavanting off places together..." Before she could finish, John silenced her with an I'm-not-his-date look, Sherlock asked for her to put the kettle on, which she replied to with a call of 'I'm not your housekeeper' before going back into her ground floor flat and closing the door firmly.

"Looks like it's up to you then." Sherlock called as he almost flew up the stairs, removing his coat and scarf as he went and hanging them on the new coat rack John had insisted on buying, as he was sick of tripping over Sherlock's scarf all the time. At least if they bought things like coat racks and desk tidies it gave the illusion of it being a tidy flat, when underneath it was a crazy mess, which fit the owner of the flat quite well...

When John finally got up the stairs, clutching his leg, he went into the kitchen to put the kettle on and make them both a mug of tea. Watson stretched and turned to see Sherlock sitting by the window with his back to the room on the arm of his lounger, staring out and fingering the strings on his violin. He started to play a soft melody that was haunting and melancholic. Watson felt a pang of something in his gut as he realised that he was probably the first real friend Sherlock had ever had. It hurt him to think that the genius was being cast out as a monster just for being cleverer than most people and scarily accurate with his findings. The 'ding' of the kettle as it boiled snapped Watson out of his daydream and he shuffled back into the kitchen to go and make the tea.

"Thank you..." so faintly uttered from the lips of the detective that, had he not stopped playing the violin, John would have missed it altogether. Before he could answer, Sherlock had swept out of the room and shut the door to his bedroom.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

John Watson had trouble sleeping that night. He was plagued by a series of dreams - some good, some not so good and some that would make his therapist demand a pay rise. His head swum with images of his army friends smiling at him, only for them to turn slightly and be missing limbs, and of Sherlock's smile – not his I've-just-had-an-epiphany smile, the shy, sweet smile that only came out when he played violin. He awoke at around three in the morning to hear a melody float through the house, so he got up and moved towards the nose.

"Can't sleep either?" Sherlock paused playing the violin to throw the question over his shoulder before John had got fully through the living room door. "It's not your over-active mind keeping you up – how could it be? It's barely active in the first place – so what is it?"

"You can say what you like about my limp being psychosomatic, but the dreams are awful" John shuffled into the kitchen and put the kettle on, pulling his dressing gown closed and re-doing the knot. He sat in his chair and gazed at Sherlock's back. "What's your story then, or are you too brilliant for sleep?" John propped his head in his hand, yawning deeply over the last part of his sentence.

Sherlock chuckled and replied with "something like that. I very rarely get a good night's sleep, I get a craving and need to re-apply." As he lifted the hand with the bow in, John could clearly see the three nicotine patches on his arm. John gazed at the back of his flatmate's head as the violin continue to sing out the melody that had woken him. He wondered how someone so selfish, so self-absorbed could be so brilliant all at the same time. He didn't ponder on this for long, though, as the kettle 'ding' told him it was time to pour the tea.

"You know how I take my tea by now, I presume?" Sherlock's voice floated through the flat, almost like it was being carried by the melody from the violin, as it was as soft and gentle as the piece he was playing – Bach's "Air on a G String". John turned as if to make a sarcastic remark, but as he did so, he saw Sherlock smiling at him – the smile he only got when playing violin. It caught him off guard and all he could do was nod sheepishly. He made the tea and carried it towards the window, where Sherlock had laid his violin to one side. John sat next to him at the window without saying a word, and they looked out into the blackness of another London night.

The quiet remained constant, neither person feeling the need to break the comfortable silence that passed between them both with idle chit-chat. John's breathing was deep and even, whilst Sherlock's was shallow. He clearly had something on his mind, John wondered whether or not to press him about it, but thought better of it. If the genius wanted to bare his soul, it was up to him. So John picked up his mug and drank from it instead.

The silence was interrupted by a bleeping noise emitted by Sherlock's laptop, which was – for a change – in the living room of the flat. Sherlock rose from his chair and took slow, languid strides towards it, seemingly in no hurry to read another clingy email from "theimprobableone". Sure enough, it was a quip from Sherlock's internet stalker about how John was "not good enough to be Sherlock's" and how he and Sherlock should be side by side instead.

"Does everybody think I'm your bloody date?" John growled as Sherlock read out the latest message, which was met with a chuckle and a wry smile from Sherlock. "It's not funny" he added, a grin spreading across his own face despite the words that just left his lips.

"Shall we put James Bond on? That should be vapid enough for us to fall asleep to" Sherlock suggested, already settling onto the lounger. "Put one of the Connery ones on, he's the best Bond" he said as he pulled his robe around him.

John smiled, shook his head and retrieved "Goldfinger" from his DVD collection. He set his mug down by his chair, put the DVD in the player and settled down with his flatmate.


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

John was awoken by the sunlight streaming through the window and onto his face. He stretched and tried to massage the stiffness out of his neck from sleeping in his chair. He looked around the room and noticed that Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. John vaguely wondered where his genius flatmate could be as he shuffled down the hall and into the bathroom.

"Oh, _jesus _Sherlock, learn to lock the bloody door!" John shielded his eyes as he saw Sherlock just out of the shower, dripping wet and clad in only a towel. "you had better not pee with the door unlocked!"

"No, that would be weird." Sherlock answered, no hint of sarcasm or irony in his voice as he began to towel dry his hair and walk out of the room past the gawking doctor.

John shrugged out of his robe, rolling his shoulder and rubbing the war scar absent-mindedly before climbing into the shower himself and letting the hot water wash away the early morning aches. After a few minutes, he thought he could smell bacon and eggs cooking, so he quickly got out of the shower in the hopes that Mrs. Hudson had come and made them breakfast – even though she was "not their housekeeper". He went into his room, dried off, dressed in pants, a shirt and his favourite cream jumper and headed towards the kitchen.

"Good morning, John. I trust you like your eggs over-easy and ketchup on your crisply-cooked bacon as opposed to brown sauce" Sherlock said, placing a plate down on the table in front of a speechless John. "What? A man can't make another man breakfast any more?" Sherlock grinned then sat down opposite him. "Oh, and be quick with that, we've got to meet Lestrade at a crime scene in about half an hour. A double murder – oh goody!" His face lit up with glee as he floated from the room and opened up John's laptop, hacked his password and went on the internet to research the area that his latest game was being played.

John merely shook his head and ate his breakfast.

Some time later that afternoon – after the detective had once again ruffled the feathers of Anderson and Donovan but proved endlessly helpful to the case – the pair strolled out of the crime scene in Islington and towards a main road to get a taxi. The cold October wind blew furiously and turned their ears and noses pink within seconds. John shivered, Sherlock seemed to pay no mind to the biting cold.

"Sherlock!" Lestrade shouted after him. Sherlock slowed his pace and eventually stopped, turning on his heels to face the detective who had called after him. Lestrade began to walk quickly towards them hands in pockets and head bowed against the wind.

"Yes?" Sherlock said, exasperatedly, pulling his gloves on whilst paying little attention to Lestrade. John stopped also, hands thrust deep into his pockets, the collar of his coat turned up against the bitter cold. Lestrade finally caught them both up and paused. "Well, what do you want?" Sherlock looked down at the detective briefly, before looking up and analysing the surroundings.

"Are you really just going to walk out on a double murder? I need you here, as much as I hate to admit it, you're brilliant at solving stuff like this" Lestrade looked at them both with pleading in his eyes. Sherlock looked resigned to go home, and proved such by rolling his eyes, making up some excuse about going to see a man about a cat and turning once more towards the main road. John looked apologetically at Lestrade and followed his flatmate, leaving Lestrade standing in the middle of an Islington back road, alone.

"Investigate the wife's sister. If she has a letter opener in her drawer, arrest her." Sherlock shouted back over his shoulder as he and his flatmate walked briskly towards a taxi and impending warmth.

Donovan joined Lestrade in the middle of the road, watching them both go."Look at that freak, I bet he'll get to that poor sod sooner or later. Look how close they are already, it's almost as if they're-"

Lestrade held up a hand to cut her off. "Freak or not, psychopath or sociopath, we need him. And if he needs John, then so be it." Lestrade turned and walked back towards the crime scene, Donovan in tow.


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

"Have you got your keys this time?" John shouted after Sherlock as he flew up the steps to their flat. Sherlock smiled and waved his keys at John before turning and unlocking the door. "And how about you out the kettle on this time?" John added, knowing full well that he'd be the one reaching past the head in the fridge to get to the milk. Sure enough, when he got up the stairs, he saw Sherlock laid across the lounger, eyes closed, fingers steepled, coat flung across the arm of the chair despite the coat rack by the door. John sighed and walked towards the kitchen.

"The wounds were too bruised" Sherlock said without opening his eyes. John turned to look at his flatmate, a puzzled look on his face.

"What was that?" John said, spooning the sugar into Sherlock's mug.

"The stab wounds on the victims. The skin was too bruised for it to have been a sharp blade that caused the wound, meaning it was likely not to be a kitchen knife that did it – the blades are too sharp – which means that the killer brought the weapon with them, which means it was pre-meditated.

"Now, since we know it's a blade but not a kitchen knife, we can assume it's something commonplace but not necessarily something that everyone would have in their house. The woman and her sister have just fallen out – most likely about their father's poor health, most likely the woman wanted nothing to do with her dying father.

"We can then assume that the woman's sister wanted her out of the picture, so took her letter opener – sharp enough to open letters but not to easily pierce skin – to do it. And she couldn't leave her sister's apparently no-good boyfriend behind, so she killed him too and made it look like a robbery gone wrong." Sherlock opened one eye and added "just in case you were wondering"

John stood in the kitchen, a teaspoon still heaped with sugar in one hand, mouth hanging open. "How did you-"

"A letter from the hospital was on her desk. Do try to pay attention, John" Sherlock cut him off mid-sentence without opening his eyes "is the tea ready yet?" he added. John stirred the sugar into Sherlock's mug and brought both through to the living room. The silence between them was - once again – comfortable and complete.

John broke the silence after a minute or two "So that's what goes on in your brain, eh?"

Sherlock smirked and took a sip of his tea "The vast majority of the time, yes. Sometimes, however, it can be caught up in the tedious normality of brain patterns – like the need to eat and other such mundane tasks." John chuckled. "What's so funny?" Sherlock got up and went over to the window, picking up his violin and beginning to pluck at the strings.

John shook his head "you have a funny way of looking at things, that's all" he paused "so, you can work out whodunnit quicker than in a game of cluedo, but social cues are completely beyond you? How bizarre..."  
"What do you mean social cues?" Sherlock looked at John incredulously.

John smirked back. "How many other people can point out other people's dirty laundry and unwittingly air it to the public?" he paused to take in Sherlock's stunned silence – something that was not often heard of from the world's only consulting detective.

"Even though you can be a bit of a social nightmare sometimes, Sherlock, you are kind of brilliant." John said, staring into his tea.

"Even if your brain is tiny and feeble, you do make an excellent cup of tea" Sherlock smiled at his flatmate and began to play the violin.


End file.
